Lone zebra

A quiet morning of hanging out at Gombe. TANAPA, the Tanzania National Parks Authority, has a very strict approach to national park fees. Daily payments are due for every 24-hour period and the joke is that there isn’t a minute’s leeway. I don’t really want to fork out another 59 dollars for a day’s permit if the boat is late in arriving to take me back to Kigoma. This Park has particularly high fees, possibly because the sightings of chimps are almost guaranteed. Residents pay half so foreign tourists have to pay a whopping 118 dollars per person per 24 hours, as well as a catalogue of other levies.

The system was down when I arrived at around 11am on Wednesday, so my receipt shows an afternoon timestamp. The guy in the accounts department at the Park, who handled my payment, confirmed that ‘we are all humans’, and that there was no dire rush to leave.

After the boat ride back to Kigoma, I assessed options for how to spend the afternoon. I jumped on a boda to take me to a little secluded beach on one of Lake Tanganyika’s many peninsulas. A lone zebra was oddly grazing around the premises.

I bumped into an Austrian couple there who are travelling with their two kids in an adventurous style around Tanzania, shortly to be spending two months in the wonderful town of Inhambane, Mozambique. Cue maximum excitement, as that’s my favourite of the Mozambican provincial capitals that I’ve visited.

Unbelievably good sunsets in Kigoma, some of Africa’s best. And it’s already a high bar.